A Skeletal figure sat atop a steel I-Beam. Standing upon it vertically as the steel itself rose high up into the open air. The floor, left rusted, corroded and decaying; never finished to rise higher into the sky up above the clouds.
Bone fingers strumming against the guitar strings
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Against the twelve strings of the bass. Eddies fingers moved with rhythm and symphony that sounded like a metal birds making their morning calls. The gentle wind of such a staggering height that was the stacks; Cloak fluttering.
He stood with closed eyes, head gently swaying from side. Continuing the cord progression as his fingers dazzled across the strings, stinging the air with their harsh melancholic melody.
His head lowered slightly. Hanging as the nods began shake from side to side, in slow smooth strokes. Hand zipping up the length of his axe, only to fall with quicker pace downward. The ever animate and malleable skull infused with his very soul furrowed its brow.
A hum began to imminent from his lacking throat. But I vibration spread through bone regardless.
His hands started to blaze in a in a set of chords, hunching forward, ripping against the cords again and again. Same cords screaming against the open sky.
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His mandible began to slowly spread what could only be described as a sneer, and raising slightly into a smile; wide almost lunacy filled grin of glee. Hands blasting across his instrument, arm slamming down against the board!
Sound cracking like thunder from the heavens!
He stopped.
Releasing a breath, despite holding no lungs. A steady stream of mist comparable to a cold winters day, slips from his lips. "Hoo…"
"Eddie." Vox asked. That buzzed hair of theirs appearing before the Skeleton, followed by the rest of her lithe and petite form. "Youve been awake for over 300 hours. You've got to take a rest eventually."
"I'll rest when I'm dead." Eddie, still with closed eyes responded. Cracking one open. "If I werent dead already! Mahaha!"
Vox pouts. "Hey I'm serious. Just because you're a skeleton doesn't mean you don't need rest!"
"Oh on contrare my Dear fellow dead" He slings the instrument around to hang from his back. The weapon built for melody warped and folded against itself. In the three years, with the help of one of the Stacks residence. He had modified the guitar to be collapsable, and even more weaponized than before.
"Do you remember that fellow who sailed with us for some time? Maxwell was it?" His eyes, now open, locked to Vox, whose own widened at the name. "Yeah the ridiculously strong guy!"
"Yes. Him." He nods. "He taught me to use Haki long ago. But I never quite got a hold of it. He spoke so dramatically. Frivolously so, spouting in words and terms I did not comprehend. Positives and Negatives, Ups and Downs. Haki holding opposites, and capabilities of something greater to be utilized as if it as a force existed only as a side to a coin." The Musician continued his perch on the I-Beam.
"But there was one thing he taught me that I did understand." Eddie held a single, boney finger to emphasize his point. "That it is through deprivation and indulgence that allows it to grow."
Hook then manifested, along with Riff. Both floating aimlessly in front of their Captain.
"But he was a whackjob. Talked about how if you hung upside down, the blood rush would make you smarter." Riff crossed his spectral arms.
"And then fell flat on his ass when he got down." Hook added on. "Shows the brains he had."
A cocked grin came to Eddies Skull. "This is true. But I think there was perhaps more merit to his ramblings than we give credit. Perhaps even if in small. He may have been a broken clock–"
He looked to the sky. Devoid of Clouds in the shining day. "But a Broken Clock is still right twice a day."
"I spent my lonesome for over a hundred years on that stretch of sea. If thats not deprivation then what is?" He murmured to himself. "And yet I had no growth to my spirit and my Haki. If anything, when the Red Sashes found me I was far beyond weaker than my living self…"
Holding his hands behind his back, he scrunched his brow in contemplation. "I think this was because I did not have the will to keep going. The ambition to hold on. I merely allowed myself to float by with the new chance at life, through death. Just as our Fair ship was."
The Trio's eyes lowered in to sad looks, but Eddie Continued regardless. "Until I met the Red Sashes. And that will returned. A purpose. Beyond instinct and need to endure."
"Indulgence. In battle that we had, in the love I felt returning my crew to their rightful places of left. Shredding my guitar for all its worth, for myself. For them. And The Red Sashes." The pale blue orbs of energy that sat in his skull dilated like pupils.
"Those Hard Rock fellows, I delivered to Watery Graves time and time again. And with such time between amidst the monotony of my death. I would forget they ever even occured. But now, I remember that they too had Haki. They held strength and ambition to wield it in physical form."
He shifted to look onto his three Nakama. "And I remember now what they did. How they did. And recount it in my own ponderings and self teaching of that art. Three Years but a drop in the bucket compared to nearly two centuries. And yet…"
"It feels as though these years have been more yearnful than any of my life or death." He leaned forward slowly. Looking over the edge as the illusion of shrinking vertigo hit his eyeless sockets.
Leg precariously balancing out behind him, still with hands behind his back. "I have new purpose. And this is my training. I deprive myself of rest, peace, the thing I could live comfortably in and not know. And indulge with the sound of my shredding. And I feel my being swell."
"Eddie…" Vox slowly reached a phantom hand out. As if to catch him. "Don't fret Vox. I'm not going to jump." He leaned back slow again, standing straight once more.
"Not like it'd do anything to me. I may shatter to a pile of bone down there, Mahaha, but I'd still piece myself back together. Besides, even if I did get down their. What would I do? The Red Sashes aren't ready to reunite. Nor to I even know if I can even get down to that—" His eyes glanced down.
"First Level." Vox's lip quivered. "I know that!" They were cut off by Hook. "But youre a worry wart."
"Hey! Someones gotta look out for him!" They snapped back with grit teeth.
"He does have that! Us! And his crew and Captain! The Red Sashes?" He shook his head in a mocking confusion to the Vocalists words.
With a small leap, Eddie fell to the floor below. Construction equipment left vacant and rotten. The trio quickly snapping back to him, only able to be within a ten meter radius least they be snapped to him.
"You three. I have an Idea. About a power I wish to use." He stopped to skid on his heel, facing them. "But it would require you, more than you've already helped in the past."
Later, Eddie was deep within the Catacombs of the Stacks. Thousands of meters of floor, stairs, buildings and more hidden within that length. A subtle groan came from the walls. Like ghouls wishing to break from them.
It was the gentle sway of the mega-structure in the wind. Wobbling but millimeters forward and back. Like a ship against currents.
"They used Ultra-Steel for the frame." Hook said. A person, who seemed small, hidden away under rags, darted away to never be seen again. They could only see Eddie. The Spectral Companions were only in his eyes and ears.
Though he did not have them.
"Another Skewer." Eddie said. "Lower we go. Seems to be I see more and more of them."
"No wonder the floors can stay supported despite being so tall. Ultra Steel is like a thousand times the strength of High Strength Steel!" Hook continued on his own thoughts aloud, ever the craftsmen.
"Why do they go this far down?" Vox began. "Theres dozens, if not hundreds of floors between this place and the next settlement of people."
"I'd guess, its because theres still something to be stripped from up here. The Mafia families may be gone. But even they couldn't be on every floor. Its why they fought for every hallway they could. So theres bound be something left to pick away at."
Stacks, despite being filled with thousands upon thousands of people. Was more barren in some places, left only to musk, mildew and the stillness of dank. Abandoned store fronts, apartment blocks, entire stretches of surface that seemed to go on for ever. Some held strange rooms that perhaps only a single set of eyes had ever laid upon.
Others left completely unfurnished. Some still in the middle of construction before the workers, who were never given the order to stop, build a top it. Shipments continued, until they didn't. And then they'd strip the lower floors for material to continue upward.
Leaving much of this place. A Skeleton.
"Why do you even want to go to the bottom anyway?" Riff asked, floating in front of him. "First you had that crazy idea—" another voice cut him off
"Which I think is fantastic, by the way" spoke Hook, flatteringly.
"Yeah!" Vox snapped, hand above their head. "It'll give us WAYY more stuff to do, and also not have to worry about being your shadows all the time."
Despite not needing to, Riff rubbed his eye. "Yeah, agreed but back to the question?"
"I want to go down to the bottom floor for a simple reason…" He came to a stop. Looking down to the ground, behind him sitting torn away walling, stripped pipes and wired that were at the time a hot new thing. Walls beaten and cracked, chairs and trash, some spots picked clean of debris to be used. Broken bulbs, mummified food, fanric covering dust caked forms that couldve at one point been a denizen of this place.
Eddie stared at the floor. Covered with rocks and fragments motionless in the still air. Particles fluttering aimlessly through it.
But he saw through it. Past it
And the floors beneath it, continued ad nauseam.
His vision tunneled and flashed past him. As if speeding down a corridor yet stand utter still. Flashes green and blue. The souls of the residents. One at a time, then none, followed by clumps of hundreds, thousands, and nothing again. Pattern repeating only changing as their ghostly small flame that was their spirit shifted, bodies outlining in the weak aura of Haki.
Rattlehead, Eddies Observation Kata, allowed him to 'Rattle' Past individuals and objects in his view, zooming to and past the environment to whatever 'Head' he desired. The lines appearing on his skull looked almost like wrinkles just below the socket and tempting to curve into smile lines around his mouth. Rare for such Haki Patterns to be so large.
His view only came to a stop when at the very very very bottom, first level floor of Stacks.
Where a single, small, fluttering flame surrounded by radiant haki sat. More lively than any other denizen, yet quieter and simmered compared to the Mafia Heads he'd taken care of….
The Trio saw what Eddie saw. "What is that?!" They all looked in unison.
"I do not know. But I'm going to find out what." Eddie said. The green color of his eyes shifted back to the cyan.
The chatter of ragabonds surrounded Eddie. Gazing up at him with reverent awe with their hushed glances before returning to their whispered conversations. The hall was covered in hanging wires, walls covered in what ever excess they could find. Like a shanty town of scrap metal. Candles made of fat with wicks of wood serving as illumination. There were small over hangs people sat under, hand made tables and chairs of trash or cobbled together materials. Indents in the walls pushing into larger spaces, lengths of beads serving as doors. Only for the hallway to then get uncomfortably tight, needing to hunch under.
If one looked up, they would be in nothing more than a canal at the bottom of an immense canyon of stacked upon similar visages that Eddie passed by. Candles melted into walls, inside cans, hanging from wire bent into links of chain.
It was common for some floors to have had adjacent floors being broken into in some fashion to expand upward and descend down.
"God, this place is cramped!" Vox said, appearing against the wall, face squishing their face from the confines. "Just have to keep moving." Eddie spoke aloud.
"We've been on this floor for like a day!" Riff said, squeezing and smushing shoulder to shoulder with the appreciation of Vox. "Do you to have to be so dramatic?" Hook said, ahead of them. Body permeating into the wall, cutting his body in half down the middle, moving in tandem with Eddies advance, yet staying static all the while.
"Hey! We can have some fun!" Riff snapped, suddenly zipping forward, ghostly tail from his lower half tethering to Eddie.
His hands wrapped around Hooks throat! Shaking him back and forth violently with a scowl against his brow! Each shake causing Hook to pass through the wall before bouncing back into view!
"Cut it out…" Eddie murmured. Stepping out of the claustrophobic space; Floor spread wide along the level. A far more spacious area had it not been for the sheer amount of clutter filling every square centimeter. Pipes, garbage, bodies, hallways cutting sharply into deeper depths, nooks depressed in to their walls only for the space to be nothing more than coffins in size.
The Trio, with Vox now attempting to separate the two, continued. Passing through Stackies, who only felt a cold shiver as their ethereal forms washed through them.
Click!
The sound of a pistols hammer snapping back! The Trio all stopped!
Eddies eyes looked around. They had moved to a place that was devoid of bodies, the only note of existence was the still burning candles.
"Don't move!" A Voice barked! It shook slightly. "You're that skeleton freak from the Top Floors! You wiped out my family!"
'Guys.' Eddie spoke within his mind. The trio all having ceased to look at Eddie the moment the sound filled their ears. 'Whose breathin' down my neck…'
"How're we supposed to know!" Hook opened his arms in confusion.
"We only see what you see!" Vox added.
"Ha…" Eddie sighed. Hanging his head. The voice snapping again behind him! "I Said don't move! Cmon! Get out here!" The voice turned away for a moment, the sound of boots stomping against the ground, sounds of magazines locking into wells, bolts snapping shut filled the quiet.
The Skeleton felt a small prick against his back. Danger Sense. Haki catching their ill intention. Those guns were loaded.
"If I killed your Mob Family." Eddie began. The baritone of his voice scratched with hoarse. "Then why would it be a wise choice for you to corner me, on but a simple walk?"
"Do you feel lucky?" He shifted his head only slightly. His hearing wasn't the best, but the sheer terror in the fighters made their tightening grip audible.
"What?!" A voice, different from the first asked.
"Well do you, punk?" Eddie looked over his shoulder slowly. Past his cloaked form to the men who stood behind him. There had to be two dozen of them, shoulder to should, kneeling, standing or peaking around cover. Filling the entire confines of the hall width to width. Covered in scraps of fabric that hid their now ruined and dishelved dress clothes.
All they saw, was a glowing pinprick of blue.
A Wash of energy came over the group! A Deep chill across their spines, radiating deep in their bones! Fear widening their eyes, raising their guns! "Fire!"
"Hook…" Eddie murmured. 'Aye aye! See yall soon!' He chortled to the other two spirits!
In the fraction of a second the Hammer of the Flint Locks fall, Eddie splayed his fingers, The form Hook, zipped to Eddies hand! His own skeletal appendage glowing with a faint dirty brown, Orbs radiating only to dissipate.
The aura of firmament!
"Vibrato…"
The Next moment, the flint sparked against the pan! Aura disappearing, shifting into a vibrant silver blue! Hooks phantom shifting into the shape of a Violins Bow! Warped into a weapon! The screw, long rod at the end, was the length for a grip! Bow string replaced with a single line of razor sharp blade!
The blade shone. Skeleton Hand holding the bow just as a Violinist should.
He swiped the air! Cutting the lead from the air! Splitting it in two! Then four! Eddies hand smeared against the air! Two dozen rounds flying through the air, only to be cut into quarters!
Coming to a stop, that was far to fast for the men, still staring forward to register, he stroked downward! A quiet buzz like strings following the movement!
Vrrrwoom~!
Vibrato, the Firmament Weapon, that utilized the spirit, energy and form of Hook, solidified by Eddies Haki to materialize a weaponized bow, did not just have a single blade. It had as many thin, razor like edges as a bow had horse hairs!
The sound that came, was from those blades vibrating at immense frequencies! They left painless surface cuts! Sharp enough they cut nerves, only for the motion to end a Vibration deep into the targets body! Like a cord being plucked that was felt through your entire being, the tremor violently shuttered the targets internals, leaving them discombobulated and wounded within their depths!
With motions as if he were playing against a Bass, Eddie gave single brushes against them, almost gentle in his moves. Against clavicles, biceps and abdomens.
"Two Hundred Hair Hum!" The Musician appeared behind the group! Vibrato in hand, a gentle cool steam coming from the blades.
Only One Second. A single beat of a metronome.
"GRAHH! AhH! AGH!" The Screams of the Mafiosos filled the confines! Bouncing from the walls and back onto their own ears. Small trickles of blood trailed, while their bodies shook in quivering. Bones feeling as if they were chimes. Organs trembling. Fluid in their ears bestowing immense vertigo on them as others felt their internals rupture!
"Hmph!" Eddie snapped his guitar out! Neck lengthening, board splitting into sections, all for an immense curved sythe blade take its place! Radiating with soul energy, he lowered. Cocked his arms back–
And launched forward! Arms swinging! The scythe blade sparking against the brick and concrete in the tight space!
"Soul Rend!" Lurching up straight! The souls of every one of the men was ripped from their mortal bodies!
Boots fell against cracked cement. The crumpled bodies left behind Eddie, continuing his path.
"Wow…So thats what you want us to do. I know you explained it, but man! Kinda cool that we get to be rings…" Vox admired the new shiny, Yellow Band around Eddies index. Surface flat with the hooked horn of the man it contained.
"Forte Requiem." Eddie half corrected. The name caused the remaining duo's lips to quiver.
"Wahh! Captain thats so sweet!" The two wrapped their arms around his neck. "Mahaha…"
"Glad you like it. When you're the rings, you'll get some well needed rest yourself. Should still be able to talk to me, if you choose. But it wont be constant like it is now."
Raising the ringed finger he continued "And. When you come out, either as weapon or when released. You'll all be caught up on whats been going on while away."
He admired the ring. The Konseki was technically now always active. But while the rings weren't weaponized, or they appeared as Vox and Riff did, he was in a form of Fukai. Haki restricted only to his other branches. As the Konseki being active but not utilized offered the risk of vulnerability, at the gain of once they were summoned.
He and the abilities would be boosted.
Eddie and his remaining two went lower and lower down the stacks. Further down than they'd ever gone before. The massive pillar of Ultra Steel, a tapered column, almost as thick as Eddie was tall. It was the main beam. Straight down the middle. Like a gods needle cushioned into the earth.
It was the first to be built when the project began all those years ago. The same pillar Eddie stop tall on but weeks ago. From pan to head, it reached a staggering height of 15,000 ft. Taking three entire islands with all of their natural resources and materials to build the megastructure.
They were just below the halfway point to the Base.
Around them, like a Honey Combs of a Bee's hive, were rooms and rooms stacked upon each other, lining all along the walls, high up into the sky, and deep down below for dozens of meters. Precarious bridges serving as intersections.
But these rooms were not living spaces in any meaningful way. They were but coffers. Only a few feet long, and barely as tall. Enough for a form of bedding with small shelves in some. Lights from candles or lamps. Each cluttered with miscellania. Blankets, pans, jars, bags, trinkets and boxes. All that comprised their being.
They rested, awoke, wandered, and then rested again. True depths of precarity and poverty. Had they still been employed as workers, their monotony would be filled with eve more worry of meeting quota of labors. Forced to claw at scarps.
Perhaps, this was as meager of a blessing as any could be. But what was it if they were being crushed by a mountain, only to have some pounds lifted from their shoulders.
"I'm far stronger now than I ever was alive…" Eddie whispered to himself. Passing by smoke filled holes where people drowned themselves in substance. Others but withered husks as they shrivel into skeletons just as the one who past by their final resting places.
"I could bring this whole thing down, I'd imagine, if I truly forced it from myself." His mind flashed back to the fights with the Dons, how he shattered and shook the entire structure with his combat.
"But where would they go? If they survived…If I got them out of here. There are no ships for these thousands of souls." He looked above to where he had started. "Would it be better to let them suffer here…to live for the sake of it. To live because they are–"
"But is this truly living at all…" His fist tightened. "They may be more dead than I…"
He pinched his brow. "What would Leroy do…A man such as him. Always seeing the desperation of those around, fighting to claw for their freedom. But this circumstance. So disparate. What would he see…what would he choose to do?" Eyes watered.
"Would it be better, for me to rend their souls now. Absorb them into myself to strengthen me. Carry them…And give their spirit purpose so that all those who are like the ones who put them here may face Retribution…."
Vox and Riff gently formed in front of him. "It would be Genocide…" Riff said. Vox spoke next. "Would it be? Could it be a mercy to them?"
"But we don't have their permission." Eddie said. "Even if it was Mercy…Like what I did to our crew…having been resurrected to be but puppets. And ripped their souls from them to carry them with me."
"Some may still have hope. Even futile. But it is their choice to make. Not mine…"
"All we can do is fight for them. For a world they can make that choice in. I do not think it would be genocide. They would not be people ripped from their comfort and stability and punished while being innocent…" His knuckles tightened hard.
"It would be a mercy. But it would also be travesty if they did not wish it…" Tears trailed his cheek bones. "Death comes for us all…Eventually. And sometimes its better for suffering to be ended swiftly than prolonged just because we feel queasy at the thought of their end…"
They lowered floor after floor.
Eddies hand stroking against the support beam that went straight up the middle. He assumed he had to be low to the first floor now. The rooms had gotten smaller and smaller. The architecture having become far more planned and intricate the further down they went. Hallway after Hallway. Lengths of Corridors, tunnels covered in mess of pipes and brickwork.
Eddie came to a stop at the end of a steel alley. Looking off into the depth beneath him. A massive industrial piece of machinery sat half suspended by tightly wound steel cables. It was a massive turbine.
Cords like dead snakes snapped from the brick and steel to hang limp. Others holding taut with immense potential to release their grip. The machine half hung cocked to the side. Shifting his gaze up be watched as network web of of square vents stretched across his vision. Going this way and that. Slinking up the sides of the walls or suspended in the air to connect to another side. Empty divots and holes perfectly square.
The same was at the vast seemingly endless bottom.
Later, much later. Days having passed. Eddie stepped from a floor connected to another by a broken in wall to find a tight alleyway of shops and storefronts. Cramped together but all in all–
Dead.
Empty. Candles and Lanterns long past fizzled out or burnt to the quick. Light bubbles burnt out even though they were thought to last forever. Fulfilments or surges in power causing them to shatter. Other left black.
Upon a balcony.
Eddie lowered one
After another.
Tightly knit together. Walls filled as high up and as far down as he could see with the same balcony, same doors, all varying only in their level of decay. Covered in mold, moss and dust. He peeked into a few. To see bedframes too small for anyone, flipped onto their sides, rooms ransacked. Others held signs of struggle. Broken desks and thrown chairs clattered into idle.
Eddie took a chair. And sat it upright; Descending again.
Who knows how long he spent descending. It may have been the entirety of his third year. Coming across some skewers who had lost their minds to monotony and dread and found only violence and scavenging.
Kra-RUNCH
A sound. Of brittle fragility breaking under minor pressure. Eddie looked down. And saw–
Himself.
No.
Not himself.
A skull. All around him were skeletons. Skulls, rib cages, arms, and hands. Some were complete, others were nothing more than piles of bones stacked high like firelogs for bon fires. Skulls crowning them.
It was a catacomb.
Eddie scooped the pieces into hand, and gently let them fall into a small nook; Turned and walked.
And the room it entered into–
Was not grand. Or intricate.
It was but a room. Water stains marking the walls like a brush that lacked but the residue of paint smeared against a canvas. Pebbles and dust clumped in corners, only to inevitably entropy their way back out across the floor.
In the center however. Was a barrel. A fire alive inside. Column of thin smog trickling out. A distinct, perfectly chaotic stain of soot blackened the ceiling. It hadn't been moved or shifted in a very long time.
Eddies hand had three rings on his finger now. A Pale Silver Band with Riffs moniker. And a Purple blue ring with a stretch of grinning teeth along. Resembling a engagement ring.
On a simple wooden stool, sat a man. Hunched forward Skin leathery and wrinkled like tanned hide. Face gaunt, even if it seemed possible, he looked more dead and skeletal than Eddie did at that moment. A long, wisping beard trailed down to the ground. Hands limp against his knees.
Eddie stood across from him. Looking at him through the fire. Looking over the rags he wore. Remnants of denim overalls hung like a hammock from his frame. Withered cloak that seemed to once be an overcoat hung over his shoulders. Sleeves long gone to tatters. His face partially obscured by a disheveled hood of a thing.
Despite being right in front of him the man did not look up. Eddies foot falls had echoed even from the Dead Corridor he was just in.
The two stood there. Unmoving for a long time.
"Good Evening." Eddie spoke. Voice sharp, cutting through the silence and unleashing a vibration like Vibrato's blade.
Consciousness returned to the Mans eyes, awareness filling them as he looked up. His eyes were so sunken deep into the sockets, that the light of the fire cast shadows with only the small glimmer of once pink irises to shine back.
A moment later however. The mans eyes waned. Looking away. "Come to finally have me?" His voice was deep and filled with cracks like a fault line. "I had thought you an apparition. Standing there before me."
Eddie did not speak for a pause. "I am not Death. I have not come to take your soul."
The Man shifted again. "Shame, that…"
"If you are not death. Then why do you stink of it." Eddie cocked a bone brow. "The Souls. The Energies. All that—"
"Burden." The words were like a bark in its whisper.
"They are not a burden on these shoulders." Eddie corrected. Shifting his stands to straighten more. "If I do not carry them, and there is no one left to. Then who would?"
A grumble of a sound rumbled the mans throat. "Usually you allow them to rest. To be still. Everyone deserves a burial."
"As long as its befitting of them." Eddie tilted his head. The Man still hazed from the heat of the Fire separating them. "Aye…"
"Who are you?" Eddie asked with narrowed eyes.
He did not look back to the Skeleton. "Does it matter now?"
"You said everyone deserves a Burial. Burial Befitting of them. Means you too. An Epitaph of your existence."
The man seemed shaken by this even if his body did not Show it. In that immense time on this island. Eddie had acquired the rarely obtained 'Empathy' Ability of The Color of Observation. Emotion Sense. Capable of feeling the Vehemence of a person.
With slow, audibly creaking movements. The Man raised his skeletal arms and pulled the hood from his face. Revealing his bald head spread in wrinkles.
"You may Call me McMahon. And I was the Director of this place…"
Eddies brow narrowed. Faces flashing before his eyes. His pupils shifting from a near total glow within his sockets to small pinpricks of blue. "What."
McMahon lowered his head. "Allow me my Epitaph, for a but a moment…" His hands idly lace together. Shifting in anxiety.
He began his story. He spoke about how the original benefactor of the Stacks had been more than just a rich man. But a World Nobel. Using the original benefactor as a proxy to shift any potential blame but also notoriety. Thinking that he had a want and wish for philanthropy.
The Stacks were meant to be called 'Escalite Heights' a tower that ever grew just like a nation would. A microcosm of a world. Its own isolated reality. Where any everything could be acquired by itself.
There had been plans for multiple Turbines placed through out for ventilation, Morray Arrays, which were a blossoming technology at the time of its designing, were to be placed in a variety of places. It could be a vacation spot, properties inside to be bought, rented out, or even have other entities own sections of the stacks to bolster economy.
The height of innovation, electricity, elevators, air conditioning, heating climate control in certain areas that were distinctly different between just one floor and the one above.
Plans for mining were underway and implemented. Initially resources from islands would be imported. And eventually mining operations beneath the depths of the island which was rich in resources would hold manufacturing and processing to produce more commodities and building materials. But after only a few years, after the first shipments came in from the islands worth of material, the mines met a catastrophic accident. A seaquake caused the mines to collapse. If it hadn't been for the main support pillar, which a majority of the initial resources went to forging and producing, the island and all of the construction would've collapsed.
These issues compounded. The World Nobel, old in age, died. Followed by the Benefactor himself. Money continued to flow. Businesses came, the governing bodies continuing their logistics and bureaucracy. But the pressures of it all. Lack of openings, the disparity of wealth, rich living in the upper sections, the Stacks continuing to rise higher and higher, many forced out of their homes to move up levels.
This lead to more and more loosing any amount of stability. The People became desperate. Thieves and Robbery. Some becoming pirates that never stepped foot onto the sea. Slowly the Mafia Trickled in. Propping up their drug trade of glimmer, crag and proloin. Getting them hooked to ring them more.
All while workers continued to build up and up. Left with nothing but threats of being left to nothingness. If they didn't build, they didn't eat. They didn't get paid. They couldn't do anything. The reward always shifted. The Labor stayed the same.
Slowly, businesses trickled out. Floors were left abandoned.
McMahon…Was at the Center of all of this.
He had been the one to give the order to begin stripping the the lower building for materials to continuing building up. If they built high enough, maybe they could get a direct connection to the World Nobels. A Lie of course. One that always shifted.
And no matter the distress calls sent out. Nothing was returned.
Because they weren't a nation. They weren't an official property.
For all intents and purposes to the government. They were but a failing project that people speculated on and eventually pulled out of.
It wasn't until the turbine failed. Pushed to its limit. No stress to heavy .
Eventually…in the quiet of chaos with barely a semblance of order…
McMahon left.
He ventured down the stacks. Because they were nothing more that. He went down the levels after another. Seeing the suffering he had caused. He went through every stage of grief. He blamed them. Hated them. Thought they failed. He punished them with any remaining power he had in the eyes of the public…And eventually.
He was left a husk of himself as he continued down.
Chosen to hoist every body he found with him. He traveled back up the stacks. And went back down. Dragging bodies on sleds. Tangled in rope. Watching them rot and decay as he carried them down and away.
By the time he was done. They were but skeletons.
Countless corpses. Made of his own actions. As merely a manager of their dispair. And he gave them a burial. That catacomb. The room he was in, he'd used the dust of those bones to seal himself in. Forming a concrete mix so that nothing would ever come in again.
But nothing would ever leave…
Eddies sockets were closed. Brow furring into anger. Only to relax a moment later.
Slowly opening them, eyes dilated back. "I should kill you now and keep your soul to empower me so that I may never allow another like you to exist." His words were cold.
"But…you chose your death. And forgiveness is n ot for me to give…Yet so many people in this desolate place are nothing more than walking corpses. I could give them mercy. But that too is not mine to take…" A small burst came from Eddie. Causing the fire to smolder down to embers that barely lit the room. Casting them both in deep shadows.
"But perhaps you could be more than a festering tumor in the bowels yet…" The light slowly flickered. Dying to coals…